Search results for ""Author Joseph Lo Bianco""

Book SynopsisThis book is a timely comparison of the divergent worlds of policy implementation and policy ambition, the messy, often contradictory here-and-now reality of languages in schools and the sharp-edged, shiny, future-oriented representation of languages in policy. Two deep rooted tendencies in Australian political and social life, multiculturalism and Asian regionalism, are represented as key phases in the country’s experimentation with language education planning. Presenting data from a five year ethnographic study combined with a 40 year span of policy analysis, this volume is a rare book length treatment of the chasm between imagined policy and its experienced delivery, and will provide insights that policymakers around the world can draw on.Trade ReviewThis innovative book provides an excellent and critical overview of the intention, interpretation and implementation of Australian language policies. Educationalists and language policymakers in countries, like Japan, destined to depend on immigrants for a human power shortage, will find this book instructive and insightful. -- Yasukata Yano, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, Waseda University, JapanThis is a major contribution to our understanding of the interplay between language policy - in all its manifestations - and the realities of teaching and learning. The authors clearly understand the broader significance of multilingualism for our 21st century society and offer some striking insights into the realities and possibilities of languages education in a multicultural context. In so doing they suggest a vision of the 'new spaces' opening up in the future. -- Lid King, National Director for Languages, England, 2003-2011A unique perspective on how areas such as language planning, social change and classroom-based research interact and may contribute to the development of language planning theory and language education policy, Lo Bianco's and Aliani's volume stands out as an innovative and much needed contribution to both fields. The 'voices from the classroom' emerging from the authors' longitudinal study nourish, sustain and legitimate new ways of working for language policy makers while offering different tools for scholars exploring education theories in action. -- Lucilla Lopriore, Roma Tre University, ItalyThis book will be a welcome resource for all those interested in the processes of language planning and policymaking, including teachers of foreign or indigenous languages, directors of bilingual schools, applied and educational linguists, sociologists and anthropologists focused on educational settings, micro-ethnographers, and curriculum designers in linguistically diverse schools, as well as those scholars specifically interested in Australian education or policymaking. This book should stimulate future language policy research in other countries that are noticing major slippage between the goals of articulated policy and actual classroom results (e.g. the United States and Britain). It should also prove useful in further elaborating existing language planning theories or models, since it stresses that there should be “constant iteration between school and nation, policy and practice” (p. 132). Finally, it should be of great assistance to language education planners who wish to democratize and increase the efficacy of the planning process by integrating bottom-up perspectives with top-down directives. -- Alicia Pousada, University of Pennsylvania * The Linguist List 25.744 *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Aims, Limitations and Questions Chapter 1: Remaking a Nation through Language Policy Chapter 2: Australia’s Italian and Japanese Chapter 3: The Research Approach and the Schools Chapter 4: Student Subjectivity Chapter 5: Pushing Policy to be Real

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Book SynopsisIt has been said there are more Chinese learning English than there are Americans. We all have a sense that the first decades of the third millennium, including the effects of the global financial recession, signal dramatic changes to the shape of the world to come. China’s emergence as a superpower is one of the few certainties in this rapidly changing world. What is less well realised is the critical role which China’s decisions about English will play in the world’s communication profile. This unique volume explores this question looking at the debates on identity, cultural values and communication practices. Taking a wide-ranging view and uniquely blending both Chinese and Western perspectives the volume explores the critically important cultural consequences of mass English learning in today’s world.Trade ReviewWhat is remarkable in this volume is not only the ways in which the discourses of this dichotomy resonate in the early twenty-first century, but also the ways in which new discourses, new problems and new opportunities emerge in the present. The editors are to be congratulated on this book, which offers an insightful blend of theory and empirical research. The fascinating and wide-ranging account of the status and functions of English in China today provided by Lo Bianco, Orton and Gao in China and English is essential reading for everyone interested in English in the Chinese context and in the wide range of educational and intercultural issues associated with the continuing story of English in China. -- Kingsley Bolton, City University, Hong Kong * English Today *While much attention is paid in certain circles to the rising power of China, little is known about the critical impact on both the Chinese people and the rest of the world of the country’s language policy, in particular China’s domestication of English and its increasing efforts to spread its language and culture worldwide. What dynamics has it brought about? How are identities negotiated with the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language at the collective/national and individual levels? And how do such identities affect China’s interaction with the rest of the world? This book is therefore a timely contribution to addressing these important questions. -- Huhua Ouyang, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China * Lang Policy (2012) 11:209–211 *This edited volume is a significant contribution to linguistic, educational, and social studies of English in China, and it is also a valubale addition to the existing literature of studies on language and cultural identity. It is an insightful volume that takes on many of the current issues that are of great interest to a wide range of readership from English language teachers and learners to researchers and scholars focusing on culture and identity as well as Chinese studies both within China and worldwide. -- Zhichang Xu, Monash University, Australia * English World-Wide 34:2, 2013 *Table of ContentsPART I Western Dreams, Chinese Quests: Habitus and Encounter 1. Intercultural Encounters and Deep Cultural Beliefs – Joseph Lo Bianco 2. Sociocultural Contexts and English in China: Retaining and Reforming the Cultural Habitus – Gao Yihong 3. English and the Chinese Quest – Jane Orton PART II Learners, Identities, Purposes 4. Language and Identity: State of the Art and a Debate of Legitimacy – Gao Yihong 5. Beautiful English vs. the Multilingual Self – Li Zhanzi 6. “Just a Tool”: The Role of English in the Curriculum – Jane Orton 7. The More I Learned, the Less I Found My Self – Bian Yongwei PART III Landscapes and Mindscapes 8. Language, Ethnicity and Identity in China – Zhou Qingsheng 9. Ethnic Minorities, Bilingual Education and Glocalization – Xu Hongchen 10. English at Home in China: How Far Does the Bond Extend? – Joseph Lo Bianco 11. Motivational Force-Imagined Community in Crazy English – Li Jingyan 12. Understanding Ourselves Through ‘Teacher Man’ – Li Zhanzi PART IV Narratives 13. Negotiated (Non-)Participation of ‘Unsuccessful’ Learners – Li Yuxia 14. Teachers’ Identities in Personal Narratives – Liu Yi PART V English for China in the World 15. East Goes West – Jane Orton 16. Being Chinese, Speaking English – Joseph Lo Bianco

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Book SynopsisIt has been said there are more Chinese learning English than there are Americans. We all have a sense that the first decades of the third millennium, including the effects of the global financial recession, signal dramatic changes to the shape of the world to come. China’s emergence as a superpower is one of the few certainties in this rapidly changing world. What is less well realised is the critical role which China’s decisions about English will play in the world’s communication profile. This unique volume explores this question looking at the debates on identity, cultural values and communication practices. Taking a wide-ranging view and uniquely blending both Chinese and Western perspectives the volume explores the critically important cultural consequences of mass English learning in today’s world.Trade ReviewWhat is remarkable in this volume is not only the ways in which the discourses of this dichotomy resonate in the early twenty-first century, but also the ways in which new discourses, new problems and new opportunities emerge in the present. The editors are to be congratulated on this book, which offers an insightful blend of theory and empirical research. The fascinating and wide-ranging account of the status and functions of English in China today provided by Lo Bianco, Orton and Gao in China and English is essential reading for everyone interested in English in the Chinese context and in the wide range of educational and intercultural issues associated with the continuing story of English in China. -- Kingsley Bolton, City University, Hong Kong * English Today *While much attention is paid in certain circles to the rising power of China, little is known about the critical impact on both the Chinese people and the rest of the world of the country’s language policy, in particular China’s domestication of English and its increasing efforts to spread its language and culture worldwide. What dynamics has it brought about? How are identities negotiated with the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language at the collective/national and individual levels? And how do such identities affect China’s interaction with the rest of the world? This book is therefore a timely contribution to addressing these important questions. -- Huhua Ouyang, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China * Lang Policy (2012) 11:209–211 *This edited volume is a significant contribution to linguistic, educational, and social studies of English in China, and it is also a valubale addition to the existing literature of studies on language and cultural identity. It is an insightful volume that takes on many of the current issues that are of great interest to a wide range of readership from English language teachers and learners to researchers and scholars focusing on culture and identity as well as Chinese studies both within China and worldwide. -- Zhichang Xu, Monash University, Australia * English World-Wide 34:2, 2013 *Table of ContentsPART I Western Dreams, Chinese Quests: Habitus and Encounter 1. Intercultural Encounters and Deep Cultural Beliefs – Joseph Lo Bianco 2. Sociocultural Contexts and English in China: Retaining and Reforming the Cultural Habitus – Gao Yihong 3. English and the Chinese Quest – Jane Orton PART II Learners, Identities, Purposes 4. Language and Identity: State of the Art and a Debate of Legitimacy – Gao Yihong 5. Beautiful English vs. the Multilingual Self – Li Zhanzi 6. “Just a Tool”: The Role of English in the Curriculum – Jane Orton 7. The More I Learned, the Less I Found My Self – Bian Yongwei PART III Landscapes and Mindscapes 8. Language, Ethnicity and Identity in China – Zhou Qingsheng 9. Ethnic Minorities, Bilingual Education and Glocalization – Xu Hongchen 10. English at Home in China: How Far Does the Bond Extend? – Joseph Lo Bianco 11. Motivational Force-Imagined Community in Crazy English – Li Jingyan 12. Understanding Ourselves Through ‘Teacher Man’ – Li Zhanzi PART IV Narratives 13. Negotiated (Non-)Participation of ‘Unsuccessful’ Learners – Li Yuxia 14. Teachers’ Identities in Personal Narratives – Liu Yi PART V English for China in the World 15. East Goes West – Jane Orton 16. Being Chinese, Speaking English – Joseph Lo Bianco

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